Arboria (2021)

I hopped in and I'm not sure I even gave this a far chance, but I bounced off very quickly. Maybe an hour in or less.

I thought the graphics were nothing special, but the overall play control felt clumsy. I don't think it did a great job onboarding and I just noped out.

Maybe some day in the future, I'll give this another go, but I think my curiosity is satisfied enough to move on through my backlog.

~David.

what i liked

• fills a gap in rogue-like gameplay with the 3d person melee action combat and it's actually one of the better ones in this bracket. might feel like souls at some point, but there isn't even a stamina bar - so it's much more lenient to play.

• the combat feels kind of clunky at first, but has a lot of depth to it and is getting more and more fun, if you're getting used to. it's quite challenging and a really enjoyable experience fighting through those terrific dungeons.

• gameplay loop is working very well despite all minor issues, so you definitely have the "one more run"-feeling.

• gruesome art style. everything about this game looks displeasing and perilous, i love it. the arborians are disgusting, meaty and uncanny troll abominations and so is like rest of the world. definitely a new flavor and a welcome one as well.

• almost all builds and weapons felt pretty viable to me, so it's like in most rogue-likes just about getting the broken combos to hit the late game easily or at least not getting screwed over by rng.

• interesting lore. it isn't too deep, but there are a couple of flavor texts. could be much more in terms of world building, but it's decent enough to appreciate it. most of 'em told through holographic monologues.

what felt debatable to me

~ the favor system to keep the arborian gods amused was odd. it's very punishing to lose their favor and losing it is pretty easily done, if you're messing up a couple of runs (too early). you have to donate them veri (money) based on your last runs income and if you fail one too early, you probably can't offer them anything or nowhere near enough. the drawbacks are for example, your random starting character will be worse for future runs until you earned the god's favor back again. might seem like an interesting feature at first, but it's rather questionable in the long run, in my opinion.

~ weapon, armor and mod diversity isn't too great, but they're at least kinda balanced and got different attack pattern / special attacks.

~ enemy variety could be more diverse as well.

~ there isn't much of a story, but does this matter in rogue-likes anyway? decide for yourself.

~ haven't seen an update or notification for this game since early december 2021. not sure, if the developer is still working on this game.

what i disliked

• balancing feels kinda off in the last zone, enemies being quite spongy and dishing out absurd amounts of damage. until there everything's kinda fine. sadly haven't heard much good about the ng+/ng++ balancing as well, but never made it there myself at this point.

• some bugs here and there, nothing too serious tho. sometimes events won't trigger (actually this happened to me only a couple of times for a specific arena event within the first map and maybe got already fixed.), items glitching with the environment and being unable to loot at all, character getting stuck in odd places and stuff like that. (actually don't know what they've already fixed and what not, because my i played this on release and the first weeks - so keep that in mind, it's not a huge con anyway)

7-8/10, depends on developer activity.

An exceptionally well-made Soulslike / rogue-lite. At a first glance, mixing those genres might seem like a terrible idea, but these guys seem to have pulled it off.

All of the game's systems and mechanics are reinforcing the idea that every new run is hard but fair - if you make a mistake and fail, it is highly likely that you recognize what it was and try to correct it in the next run. More often than not, the enemies will be outnumbering you but they use a low number of different predictable attacks so you can pull off your dodging skills to the max.

After the first few runs, the bob-and-weave pattern steadily becomes natural to you, at least until you discover new enemies with new attack patterns on the following floor. This way, there is a very natural progression of your mechanical skills as you progress the game which is additionally enforced by the meta-progression of skill passives, unlockable weapons/armors/etc.

The visuals of the game, whilst not on a sharply realistic level, fit the theme of the game very well - the items, enemies, NPCs, character animations, the level environment, the sound effects, and the unlocking process itself certainly look, feel, sound... and smell... troll cave-ish. All that is done with a pinch of silly humor here and there that makes it easier to forget your anger after a prematurely ended run.